This invention relates generally to improved communication systems and methods involving high performance serial transmission of data messages, and, in particular, to techniques for detecting, repeating, and utilizing the associated timing messages when such timing messages employ omitted clock pulses to effect data message synchronization.
In recent years there has arisen a demand for high performance digital data transmission techniques, especially in the fields of information processing, scientific instrumentation, and remote operation of instruments or machines. By "high performance" is meant communication at sufficiently high data rates and over distances sufficiently great that the physical properties of the transmission lines become determining factors in the maximum data transfer speed permissible with insignificant error rate. Over very long distances, the transmitted messages may become degraded because of the physical properties of the transmission medium, and in such situations it may be necessary and desireable to introduce repeating stations in order to maintain the performance level.